The Paying Guests

I read The Paying Guest by Sarah Waters for one of my book groups.  We met to discuss it yesterday

and agreed that perhaps the English just have different tastes in books, as it is a best seller over in England.  But then another member pointed out that it is also a best seller here, so that shot down that theory.  While we ended up having quite a good discussion about that book, it wasn’t wildly received by any of us.

The story takes place in 1922 outside of London.  Frances Wray lived in a big, old house with her mother.  Her father and two brothers had died, and they were left there alone to try to manage the home and the expenses.  After deliberation Frances and her mother decided to rent out some rooms to help with their debts, something they would never have dreamed of doing before.  Frances and her mother rented out part of their upstairs to Lenny and Lillie Barber, a working class couple, who came from a very different lifestyle than Frances and her mother.

The first half of the book was somewhat interesting, as the four people living together began to know each other and develop relationships among themselves.  Frances slowly fell in love with Lillie and the first half of the book is spent developing that relationship.

The second half of the book became a mystery who-done-it.  But it lost my interest at that point.  I found it slow-going.  And I never cared about any of the characters.  I didn’t find any of them especially likable.  There were a few twists at the end that added a bit of interest but all-in-all, I just wouldn’t recommend this book to anyone.    

What I Know For Sure

I received Oprah Winfrey’s new book, What I Know For Sure, for Christmas.  I had picked it up at

the library earlier, read a few pages, and took it back.  I didn’t want to keep reading it because I was taken with all of it immediately and wanted my own copy! As trite as it sounds, I found this book to be one of the most inspirational books I have ever read.  While I am not a huge Oprah fan, I do respect all that she has done, and find her spirituality to be quite on target with my own beliefs.  I found myself wanting to mark every page for something written on it, and finally realized that I just couldn’t do that.  I had to accept that I found the whole book inspirational. 

The book is a compilation of her monthly columns in the Oprah magazine.  So each essay is quite short, but distinct.  It is divided into sections: Joy, Resilience, Connection, Gratitude, Possibility, Awe, Clarity and Power.

"You have the choice this very moment-the only moment you have for certain.  I hope you aren't so wrapped up in nonessential stuff that you forget to really enjoy yourself-because this moment is about to be over.  I hope you'll look back and remember today as the day you decided to make every one count, to relish each hour as if there would never be another."

The book also has a small bookmark ribbon attached!  Bonus.

The Homesman

I recently read The Homesman by Glendon Swarthout.  It was written in 1988.  I was not familiar

with his works, but he was quite an accomplished author of Western fiction, with fourteen other books written about the Wild West!  The Homesman won two awards in that category.  It has been made into a movie starring Tommy Lee Jones as the homesman.  I am looking forward to seeing it.

The Homesman takes place in Nebraska in the 1850’s.  I found the story very interesting.  It is primarily about the women pioneers and how difficult life was.  For many women (and probably men) the hard life shattered both their mental and physical health.  The families were unable to care for the women, and so a homesman would be found to escort the women back East to their families there or to institutions where they would be cared for.   

In the book, four of the wives living in the area had gone mad, and something needed to be done for them.  However, none of the men in the area would step up to take the women back East, so a spinster, Mary Bee Cuddy, volunteered to take them back to Iowa where there were people who would then take the women on to their final destination.  As Mary Bee was making preparations for the journey (which would take four or five weeks in a covered wagon), she came upon a man hanging from a tree, a noose around his neck, still sitting on his horse (the point being when the horse took off, the man would be killed).  It turned out that the man, George Briggs, had jumped claim to another man’s land while the man was gone, and the neighbors found him and rather than outright killing him, put him on his horse with a noose around his neck, thus avoiding killing him themselves. Mary Bee, knowing that she could not handle the four mad women by herself, agreed to save Mr. Briggs if he would do whatever she asked.  He consented and, in that way, she got a companion to travel with her.

The journey was full of hardships, including Indian attacks, and bad weather.  And, of course, two very different people traveling very close together.

I was surprised by how taken I was with this story.  The stories of the four mad women were fascinating.  The story ended up much differently than expected.  One of my book groups read this and the other members did not like the ending.  I kind of did like it…it was quite unexpected and it contrasted strength and resilience.

The very most interesting part for me was reading the Afterword of the book.  The Afterword was written by Glendon Swarthout’s son and he described how the book was based on research and actual stories of the pioneer women.  Fascinating.

Nothing Too Exciting

I have recently read three books, none of which I found to be especially great.  Not that they were bad reads, each was entertaining, but nothing that I couldn't put down!

I read Transatlantic by Colum McCann for one of my book groups.  I had great difficulty getting into McCann is a wonderful writer (beautiful prose), I was really bothered by his fragmented sentences in the book.  At one point I even read a brief section to my husband, just to express my frustration so he could understand my complaints!  But besides that, I just didn't really care about what was happening in the first half of the book.  However, this was one of those rare instances where my interest peaked half way through and I began to really enjoy the book!

the book, and would have quit reading it if I wasn't reading it for book group. Although

The book begins in 1919 in Newfoundland with two aviators setting course for Ireland.  They were attempting to be the first to fly nonstop across the Atlantic Ocean.  Then the book jumps back to around 1845 in Dublin where Frederick Douglas is trying to raise awareness and sympathy for the abolitionist cause in America. Then the book goes to 1998 in New York, with Senator George Mitchell leaving for Ireland to attempt to lead peace talks amid the violence there.

So there are three different journeys to Ireland described over 150 years time.  Interspersed in these stories are the stories of strong Irish women.  One of them, Lily Duggan, was a servant in the home where Frederick Douglas was staying.  She worked and earned passage to America. Lily's life in the United States is where I began to be interested in the book.  During the Civil War she went to work where her son was in camp.  The book goes on with her daughter, granddaughter and great-granddaughter, all the way back to Ireland in the end.

The book has a lot of interesting comparisons and though-provoking themes in it, including race, class, and relationships. It was a good book for our group discussion.

I next read The Storied Life of A. J. Fikry by Gabrielle Zevin.  I would classify it as kind of a

book-lover's book in that it is a story about a recently widowed young man, A. J. Fikry, who owns a small bookstore on an island.  He lived a quiet lonely life and was aware that small bookstores were probably becoming a thing of the past.  He was not happy with the state of publishing and the publishers choices of books.  Once or twice a year a sales rep from a publisher he dealt with would come to the island to show him the newest books being released.  When a new sales rep showed up, he was not happy, and did not leave a good impression on her.  Sometime later, a young toddler was left in his bookshop with a note "This is Maya.  She is twenty-five months old."  Of course, A. J. does not feel that he can take care of the child, nor does he want to, until it is time for her to go and he decided that perhaps he could keep her, so he does.  Eventually A. J. opens himself up to the possibility of love and began to pursue the sales rep.  The story continues until Maya was 18 years old.   

All in all, a good book, but fairly predictable.  There were some good island characters and a mystery that added to the book.

 And finally, I read The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins.  It has been highly touted as the Gone

Girl for 2015.  It was a good read, but I didn't find it nearly as disturbing (in an interesting way) as Gone Girl.

The girl on the train was Rachel Watson, a divorced, unemployed, sad girl who traveled on the train every day to London in the morning and back home again each night so that her friend, at whose home she was living, would not know that she had been fired from her job months ago.  So every day on the train she passed by the house where she and her ex-husband had lived, and, where in fact, he now lived with his new wife and baby.  Near their home, Rachel began to notice a couple who was often out on their patio each morning and appeared to be in a perfect relationship.  She began fantasising about their lives, even to the point of making up names for them.

But one morning, as Rachel watched from the train window she saw the woman kissing another man, and Rachel's life began to spinning even worse than it had been.  Then the woman was reported missing.  Rachel can't stay out of it, and so it begins....

The book is a good mystery and was a fun read.

Ties That Bind-Stories of Love and Gratitude from the First Ten Years of StoryCorps

Ties That Bind by Dave Isay is a collection of stories that have been collected by the StoryCorps group

over the past 10 years.  StoryCorps mission is to offer individuals "the opportunity to record, share and preserve the stories of our lives."

To learn more about StoryCorps go to:
http://storycorps.org/about/

The book is divided into 3 sections: "We Saved Each Other", "Been Through Battles", and "Two Sides of the Same Heart", with each section having about 12 different short stories.  Some of the stories were quite touching, others just nice.

I think that the project is an important one for the future, so it was interesting to read some of the stories that have been preserved and learn more about StoryCorps.

The Night Birds

Here's a great book to start out a new year! The Night Birds by Thomas Maltman, published in 2007, The Night Birds.  I really wish that we were discussing it at book group, so I may present it again for vote when it is my turn in a few months!

was awarded the Alex Award, the Friends of American Writers Literary Award, and a Spur Award.  I am surprised that I hadn't heard of it until it was presented (but not chosen) at last month's book group. I had voted for it because I thought it sounded so interesting, but another book was chosen.  I still wanted to read it, so after reading the book group choice, I read

The Night Birds is set in the 1860's and 1870's in Missouri, then Minnesota.  It is the story of three generations.  Asa Stenger, a young boy, is at the heart of the book.  He was descended from German immigrants who had settled in Missouri, then moved to Minnesota.  The time period was that of the Civil War and then the Dakota Conflict (or The Sioux Uprising), a fairly unknown time of US history.

In Minnesota during this time period conflicts were still relatively common between the white settlers and the Indians.  However, cordial relationships between the settlers and the Indians were also evident.  One day, Asa's Aunt Hazel, his father's sister, unexpectedly showed up at their home.  She had been thought to be long dead, but as Asa learned, Hazel had been long-forgotten in an asylum for years.  As Hazel and Asa began to trust each other and become closer, Hazel began sharing stories of her past with Asa, including her being taken captive by and living with the Dakota Indians.  Hazel had been institutionalized after the capture and hanging of 38 of the Dakota warriors in 1862. 

Hazel's story is fascinating and interweaves history with Indian mysticism, love, loss, and forgiveness.
Her story left Asa with questions and answers that led him onto his path in life.

This is a beautifully written story that I look forward to re-reading at some point.

What are the night birds?  "...birds that led humans out of sorrow."

Beautiful!